2013 - Issue 4 - Fall

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HOTTEST TICKET
André De Shields as King Louie and
Akash Chopra as Mowgli perform in
The Jungle Book, opening at the
Huntington's BU Theatre this fall.
Jungle Fever
B
orn in India but raised in a rough British
boarding school, Rudyard Kipling wrote
the stories that compose The Jungle Book
while living in Vermont, of all places. He and his
American wife built a home just outside of
Brattleboro, not far from her family estate, and
lived there until a family feud caused them to
return to England. Kipling's peripatetic life could
well explain why he wrote about the orphaned
boy Mowgli in search of a loving home. It's a story
that resonated with Walt Disney, who oversaw
production of the 1967 animated hit film—the last
project he worked on before his death. Now a
brand-new theater adaptation plays at the
Huntington Theatre Company after a box-officebusting run in Chicago this summer.
Unlike other Disney theatrical productions
like Mary Poppins or The Lion King, Disney has
largely left creation of this musical to the
coproducers of the Huntington and Chicago's
Goodman Theatre. At the helm is Mary
Zimmerman, a MacArthur Foundation genius
grant fellowship winner who directed Candide
74
to acclaim at the Huntington two years ago.
Zimmerman explains her attraction to Kipling's
theme of innocence lost: "The Mowgli stories,
although they are completely fantastical and
imaginary, were an act of recovery for [Kipling].
It was the recovery of a lost paradise—the
paradise of his Indian childhood. We were all
"We all have to leave the
place of nature to enter
the adult world."
—MARY ZIMMERMAN
once very young and wild and close to the
animals, and we all have to grow up and leave
the place of nature to enter the adult world," she
says. "We put into books and paintings and plays
that which we have lost. We are attempting to
recover that loss."
Zimmerman and her creative team found
aesthetic inspiration for The Jungle Book on a
two-week trip to India where, she says, they
intensively discussed the project 24/7. "We knew
early on that we wanted a beautiful, graphic
jungle, but not one that matched the film exactly,
and we knew that we didn't want to do costumes
that hid the human form or face too much. That
was in keeping with Kipling's penchant for
describing the animals in utterly human terms,"
Zimmerman says.
The music has been adapted, too, with famed
Disney songwriter Richard Sherman offering
counsel. He, along with his late brother, Robert,
wrote much of The Jungle Book's music. But here
the songs have an Indian and jazz infusion with
sitars and swing. "Sherman is a miraculous man,"
Zimmerman says. "He's full of drive, energy—
utterly enthusiastic." So are audiences. On
word of mouth alone, the Huntington extended
the show's run even before the production in
Chicago closed. The Jungle Book runs September
7– October 13 at the Huntington Theatre Company's
BU Theatre, 264 Huntington Ave., 617-266-0800;
huntingtontheatre.org BC
PHOTOGRAPHY BY LIZ LAUREN
THE HUNTINGTON THEATRE COMPANY'S NEW THEATRICAL PRODUCTION OF THE JUNGLE BOOK
MAKES US FALL IN LOVE WITH RUDYARD KIPLING'S TALES ALL OVER AGAIN. BY JARED BOWEN
BOSTONCOMMON-MAGAZINE.COM
074_BC_SC_HT-JungleBook_Fall13.indd 74
8/2/13 2:30 PM